Skip to content
ampere

File:Amperemeter_hg.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

EntityQ25272· pop 120· linked from 861 articles

Also known as amp, A, amperage, amperes, amps

The ampere ( , ; symbol: A), often shortened to amp, is the unit of electric current in the International System of Units (SI). One ampere is equal to 1 coulomb (C) moving past a point per second. It is named after French mathematician and physicist André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836), considered the father of electromagnetism along with Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted.

AI overview

An ampere (or amp) is the standard unit used to measure the amount of electric current flowing through something, defined as one coulomb of charge passing a point every second. It matters because it's the internationally agreed-upon way to quantify electrical flow, making it essential for understanding and working with electricity in everyday applications from household devices to industrial systems.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Key facts

Unit.name
ampere
Unit.image
File:Amperemeter hg.jpg
Unit.caption
Demonstration model of a moving iron ammeter. As the current through the coil increases, the plunger is drawn further into the coil and the pointer deflects to the right.
Unit.standard
SI
Unit.quantity
electric current
Unit.symbol
A
Unit.dimension
I
Unit.namedafter
André-Marie Ampère

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Image
Ampere-o-meter-vintage-HDR-0h.jpg
Show 5 more facts
Wikidata SPARQL query equivalent
wd:Q25272 p:P2370/psn:P2370 [wikibase:quantityAmount ?source; wikibase:quantityUnit ?base]. ?item p:P2370/psn:P2370 [wikibase:quantityAmount ?target; wikibase:quantityUnit ?base]. BIND(?source / ?target as ?value)
conversion to SI unit
1
unit symbol
A
Commons category
Ampere (unit)
NCI Thesaurus ID
C42536
Sources (3)

via Wikidata · CC0

~7 min read

Article

8 sections
Contents
  • History
  • Former definition in the SI
  • Present definition
  • Units derived from the ampere
  • SI prefixes
  • See also
  • References
  • External links

The ampere ( , ; symbol: A), often shortened to amp, is the unit of electric current in the International System of Units (SI). One ampere is equal to 1 coulomb (C) moving past a point per second. It is named after French mathematician and physicist André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836), considered the father of electromagnetism along with Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted.

As of the 2019 revision of the SI, the ampere is defined by fixing the elementary charge to be exactly , which means an ampere is an electric current equivalent to elementary charges moving every seconds, or approximately elementary charges moving in a second. Prior to the redefinition, the ampere was defined as the current passing through two parallel wires 1 metre apart that produces a magnetic force of newtons per metre.

Connections

Categories